Archives For preaching

This coming Sunday I am preaching on Philippians 2:19-30. The passage includes three characters: Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus. These three characters are all unique in their own way and each serve God in their own way. Each of them have received unique gifts and developed their talents for His glory and for His service. This passage gives a great opportunity to talk about the unity of the body of Christ and the usefulness of each member of that body utilizing their God-given spiritual gifts for His service and in His church.

To illustrate this point here is a personality profile chart for the Myers-Briggs Personality Profile test as it relates to Biblical characters.

I have done this test a couple of times and my personality was mostly ESFJ and some ENTJ. Mostly David and some of Paul.

Like this:

I have been studying how to listen well for a Pastoral Counseling course at Liberty Seminary. This quote about congregational listening struck me as encouraging. For us preachers, kinds words and supportive comments during or after the sermon are extremely encouraging.

“Once at at preaching conference, I heard a nationally recognized African-American preacher discussing the “amens” and other vocal responses of his congregation during his sermons. Many of us were not used to such an interactive style.

He said,

“It isn’t just up to preachers [talkers] to get the message across. We need help. Preaching takes a lot of work from the congregation [the listeners] too. After services sometimes my people say, ‘We did good this morning!’ Now that’s real preaching when they feel like we did it together.”

Like this:

I am eager to preach this Sunday, Father’s Day, at Hope Fellowship Church as a new Teaching Elder/Pastor. God has blessed greatly over the past few years and I am excited to finally reach the point of preaching to a congregation that we will call our home church and our church family. God truly is good. He has blessed Jamie and me far more than we dreamed at this point in our life.

The theme of God’s goodness will be the focus of Sunday’s message. As we embark on this new chapter, it is important for us as a church family to pause and reflect on God’s goodness. This reflection upon God’s goodness ought to drive us to extol his name. This Sunday, I hope you will come ready praise God’s “wondrous works in the children of man” (v. 8)! Extol Him!

Psalm 107:1-2

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble

Psalm 107:32

Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

The word EXTOL comes from a primitive root meaning:

“to be high or exalted, rise”

It can also carry the meaning to “become proud” or to “boldly proclaim”

This is what we as redeemed creatures ought to do. This is our natural response to God’s goodness in our lives. We ought to extol His good name.

In the first section of Ephesians the theology of God’s plan and our response to that plan is laid out for believers. We learn about God’s spiritual blessing upon our new lives found in Christ. God is ultimately the instigator of salvation and we find our lives fully changed by the Son’s sacrifice on the cross. I found this interesting Bible Study Exercise from the Teacher’s Commentary that helps draw out our immense inheritance through our new found life in Christ because of what the Father has done. I don’t know about you but I am always looking for more interactive studies to use for messages and to help my students better understand the Bible. This study is simple but can be extremely helpful. Hope you find it of some use.

Link to Life Bible Study

Divide into pairs. Give each member a NEW IDENTITY chart. Each pair is to find in Ephesians 1 and 2 evidence of what God has done, and of what we now have and are in Christ. When the passages have been studied, each should individually write out which of the findings seem most significant to him or her and why.

In the Sunday School class at CBC we’re doing a series called Marriage, the Bible and You. In the second lesson of the series, I brought up the subject of secular talk shows and how they like to try to beat up on Christians of any size, shape, and significance about whatever topic they think is most embarrassing and controversial. Of course, at the moment it’s “gay” “marriage,” or the topic of homosexuality at all.

In the course of the lesson, I remarked that I think — from the comfortable quiet safety of my study — that I’d take a different approach.

When Piers or Larry or Tavis or Rosie or Ellen or The View or whoever tried probing me about homosexuality, or wifely submission, or any other area where God has spoken (to the world’s consternation), I think I’d decline the worm altogether. I think instead, I’d say something like,

“You know, TaPierRosEllRy, when you ask me about X, you’re obviously picking a topic that is deeply offensive to non-Christians — but it’s far from the most offensive thing I believe. You’re just nibbling at the edge of one of the relatively minor leaves on the Tree of Offense. Let me do you a favor, and just take you right down to the root. Let me take you to the most offensive thing I believe.

“The most offensive thing I believe is Genesis 1:1, and everything it implies.

“That is, I believe in a sovereign Creator who is Lord and Definer of all. Everything in the universe — the planet, the laws of physics, the laws of morality, you, me — everything was created by Another, was designed by Another, was given value and definition by Another. God is Creator and Lord, and so He is ultimate. That means we are created and subjects, and therefore derivative and dependent.

“Therefore, we are not free to create meaning or value. We have only two options. We can discover the true value assigned by the Creator and revealed in His Word, the Bible; or we can rebel against that meaning.

“Any time you bring up questions about any of these issues, you do so from one of two stances. You either do it as someone advocating and enabling rebellion against the Creator’s design, or as someone seeking submissive understanding of that design. You do it as servant or rebel. There is no third option.

“So yeah, insofar as I’m consistent with my core beliefs, everything I think about sexuality, relationships, morals, the whole nine yards, all of it is derived from what the Creator says. If I deviate from that, I’m wrong.

“To anyone involved in the doomed, damned you-shall-be-as-God project, that is the most offensive truth in the world, and it is the most offensive belief I hold.

“But if I can say one more thing, the first noun in that verse — beginning — immediately points us forward. It points to the end. And the end is all about Jesus Christ. That takes us to the topic of God’s world-tilting Gospel, and that’s what we really need to talk about.”

I mean, why quibble about minor offenses, when we know how to take them right to the mother lode of all offense — that God is God, and we are not?